There are several reasons that ink-jet printing has become a popular way of recording images on various media surfaces, particularly paper. Some of these reasons include low printer noise, capability of high-speed recording, and multi-color recording. Additionally, these advantages can be obtained at a relatively low price to consumers. However, though there has been great improvement in inkjet printing, accompanying this improvement are increased demands by consumers in this area, e.g., higher speeds, higher resolution, full color image formation, increased stability, more permanent images, etc.
In general, ink-jet inks are either dye- or pigment-based inks. Both are typically prepared in a liquid vehicle that contains the dye and/or the pigment. Dye-based ink-jet inks have been a dominant technology in the ink-jet ink arena. However, as many dyes are water-soluble, images printed using many of such dye-based ink jet inks are not as water fast as may be desirable. The water fastness of an anionic dye-based ink-jet ink printed on media has been shown to be enhanced by overprinting or underprinting the printed image with a fixer fluid including cationic material. Thus, when the cationic polymer and the anionic dye contact one another on a substrate, a reaction between the dye and the cationic material creates an image with improved water fastness and permanence. However, many of these materials do not exhibit acceptable reliability in standard printheads, and further, show yellowing when printed on paper.